The Individual, Business, and Society (IBS) Curriculum

Professor Bruce Kogut speaks with three senior executives from Citigroup about topics ranging from leadership accountability to cyber-security.

Columbia Business School seeks to equip students not only with the fundamentals of management, but also with the ability to thoughtfully consider the sometimes competing demands of business, individuals, and society at large.

Faculty Voices

“Overall I take an optimistic position: in more cases than not, you can do well by doing good. But this may require some innovative thinking.”— Geoffrey Heal Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility

The Individual, Business, and Society (IBS): Tradeoffs, Choices, and Accountability curriculum uses a series of thought-provoking sessions to foster a community dialogue on these issues.

In the classroom, core course lectures and case studies equip students to think critically about conflicts and tradeoffs. Complementing the in-class discussion are guest lecturers, panel discussions, and other special events.

IBS activities and sessions in Orientation are supported by the Citi Foundation.

"Those in a homogeneous group put much less effort into the task at hand in part because they were more interested in avoiding conflict. Diverse environments allowed people to focus on the task instead of their social relationship."

“What makes countries rich is how productively they use their resources…Once a (more productive) technology is introduced, do people use it? Why aren’t people using the most improved technologies to begin with?”

Research Reports

The Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics is the umbrella for all activities and research on leadership, ethics and governance at Columbia Business School.